~ A site for my creative writing endeavors, writing prompt responses, and experimentation.

Monthly Archives: June 2018

Most likely you tell people you’re a writer. That’s probably the right answer even though it may not be the correct answer. Confused yet? Assuming you said yes, let’s look into whether you should call yourself an author or a writer.

If you’re like me, you don’t particularly care if there is a distinction between the two labels. Who cares, you (and I) ask? I write. I publish. I’m happy.

Technically, at least according to those who spend time debating such things, being a writer and being an author are two different things. Well, maybe. In one camp are the people who differentiate between the two terms based solely on whether you are doing it (writer) or have already done it (author). In other words, a writer is a person who writes; an author is a person who has written.

Too simple? There’s a camp for you. That camp says that a writer is anyone “who writes a book, article, or any literary piece.” An author, on the other hand, is more accomplished; an author “originates the idea, plot, or content of the work being written.” By this definition someone who writes a biography of someone else is a writer, but not an author, even when that biography has been published. So by the this camp’s definition, famed author (or is it writer) David McCollough is merely a writer despite the fact that his Pulitzer Prize-winning book John Adams sold over 1.5 million copies.

Frankly, I’m going with the first camp on this one: McCollough is an author. A published one. A multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning one. ‘Nuff said.

Of course, by this first camp’s definition you can be an author (for works already written, and presumably, published) AND a writer (for works currently being written). If you’re a second camper, well, you have to be more original and write an autobiography. Or if you write a novel you’re good for author since you would have created some original concept, plot, and content, whether you get published or not. The proverbial jury is still out if what you write is fan fiction. Seriously, people, write something original.

This is all so confusing, and in my book, irrelevant. There are people who spend days debating such esoteric topics. I’m not one of them. I’m good with “if you write, you’re a writer; if you’ve been published, you’re an author.”

My definition does differentiate based on the likelihood that some significant amount of people not living in your household will have read your work. There are people who write but their writing literally is never read by anybody (dresser drawer novelists, I’m talking to you). A larger number have work read by some small number of people – family, friends, and stray e-book sales on Amazon. And then there are some small number whose writing has been read by a larger number of people, say like, thousands. [I’ll ignore those who have sold millions of copies because rather than reading this article you’re working on your next million-seller]

Keep in mind that “significant,” “larger,” and “small” are relative terms. The absolute numbers of what constitutes “significant” will depend on many factors. If you’re David McCollough, selling only a million copies might seem a failure. If you’re me, selling in the tens of thousands is not as satisfying as breaking 100,000, but I’ll take it (the average number of copies sold for non-fiction titles is around 3,000). If you’re 95% of all writers, breaking out of the hundreds (or tens) is about all you can hope for.

The bottom line is that whether you consider yourself a writer or an author is pretty much meaningless. All that matters is that you write.

I take that back. Besides writing you have to put it out there for people to read. After all, every writer wants to be read. Don’t be the base of the writer pyramid, put yourself at the tip and give yourself a chance at the roulette wheel.

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I’ve always been a reader, so it should be no surprise that the third installment of my “50 Objects” series is a book. Only this time I didn’t merely read it; I wrote it. And doing so changed my life.

I had grown bored with my life while serving out a three-year stint in Brussels. Don’t get me wrong; Brussels was great. I still liked parts of what I did for a living, and moving to Europe was part of my plan. But being there also released a previously unknown pent-up desire to experience more of the world. When I returned to the United States and the more mundane aspects of my job I began to feel it was time to broaden my horizons. After getting settled, I put a few cracks in my otherwise introverted shell.

One crack was to do something I never thought I had the guts to do. I took a train to New York City to attend a writer’s conference. The expensive hotel and registration on top of Amtrak pushed the cost to about $1400, a fortune to my fiscal conservatism. I pitched a book during the pitch slam (speed dating for agents). All were interested, but one picked up on the fact that I was a scientist and – long story, short – a few weeks later I had a contract to write a book about Nikola Tesla.

I’ve been a lot of things during my scientific career – marine biologist, aquatic toxicologist, regulatory scientist, environmental scientist, consultant, and more – but definitely not an electrical engineer or physicist. Yet here I was writing about a once-famed, since-obscured “electrician” who just happened to invent a way for alternating current (AC) to become the basis of our modern day electrical grid.

A career of scientific consulting – where becoming an expert overnight was often needed to bring in new clients and address novel issues – had made me a quick study. Diving into the existing literature and Tesla’s own writings and patents, I rapidly got a feel for the man. The fact that I was not an electrical engineer turned out to be perfect for what the publisher and I had in mind – a book full of graphics that appealed to a broad general public. This fit nicely; one of my concerns with my job was that the general public didn’t have a good understanding of the science behind what we did. This was a chance to bring an obscure scientist from history back to life.

And it did. The book was a huge seller. Now into its 8th printing and translated into several languages (like its successors, my books on Thomas Edison and Abraham Lincoln), I’ve succeeded in reaching a huge number of people that would have otherwise never read a science biography.

Not long after Tesla: The Wizard of Electricity came out I decided to quit my consulting job. This was a risk. Only a handful of writers ever make a killing as authors (which is why the New York Times bestseller list always seems to list only the same few authors). I was giving up a dependable salary for a great deal of financial uncertainty. Oddly, by the time I left it was an easy decision. It’s been nearly five years and I haven’t regretted it for a nanosecond.

About that book I had pitched. Despite being pushed aside as I wrote the other three books (and two e-books), I’ve continued to do the necessary research. It’s now my main focus. My plan is to get it finished during the next year and in stores soon after. When that is done I’ll move on to the next book I already have planned.

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Some days life seems overwhelming. I’ve had a few days like that lately. You know the drill – task list longer than your arm, only to find you can’t decide which task to do first. So you do none.

Multitasking isn’t a new concept for me. With many varied interests and a mild case of ADD (if such a thing can be mild), I’ve always been easily distracted. I’ve spent a career as a scientist, but even within that realm I’ve zigzagged through specialties as I’ve hopped from one firm to another. Marine biology? Covered! Aquatic toxicology? Got it! Pesticides? Chemicals? Food and Drug? Effluents? Ocean disposal sediments? Check, check, check, check. Zoology, Botany, Physiology, Anatomy, Ecology? Yup, and more. Adaptability kept me employed despite periodic company upheavals, layoffs, job hopping. Need me in Brussels? Where’s my ticket? Edinburgh? I’m there. I’ve fallen a lot professionally, but I always found a way to fall upward. Well, mostly always.

Of course, a career of science didn’t keep me away from my second career as an Abraham Lincoln nut. Early on in my life I became enamored of our 16th president, which made me the odd-man-out in my revolutionary war-focused neighborhood. I’m not sure what attracted me to him – maybe his honesty, integrity, ability to read the public sentiment, really tall hat – but I started reading about him when I was very young. How young, I don’t recall, which means it was very very young. I do remember reading Jim Bishop’s book The Day Lincoln was Shot, and of course Carl Sandburg’s The Prairie Years and the War Years. And many more. Now I’m focused on my Lincoln studies as Vice President of the Lincoln Group of DC and Board member of the Abraham Lincoln Institute. I’ve written one book on Abraham Lincoln (two if you include an Amazon e-book) and am working on two others. Lincoln activities consume many of my days (including today; I leave shortly to attend a lecture by a fellow Lincoln historian).

Ah, but then there is the travel. I call my home website Science Traveler. After living and working in Brussels for three years, traveling as much as work and pocketbook would allow, I got the travel bug. I even quit my job a few years later to focus on writing and traveling (and writing about traveling). I recently returned from a road trip, am flying off again soon to board a ship, after which I have another road trip, then yet another road trip, then a few more before flying off again. In the next 12 months I should be on as many as six continents. Planning and doing takes a lot of time.

I just found myself exhaling a huge sigh, right after realizing that the monologue above doesn’t even include my writing. I have one primary major book on Lincoln I’m working on, but there is also a secondary Lincoln book I’m just getting started (I’ll be editing a compendium volume). Oh, and my first Bill Bryson-esque travel memoir, a road trip through Argentina’s Patagonia, that will be the first of my science traveling series. I’m also starting to plot out the research for my “next” book, assuming I can stay focused long enough to get the current book(s) written.

There’s more – a lot more – but you get the idea.

As the title of this piece notes, I’m stretched thin in every way except height and weight. My “to do” list not only keeps expanding, it has stretched into multiple pages. For every item I cross off there are a half dozen I add. Something has to change. I’m just not sure what.

Meanwhile, I’m a bit lost. My writing has suffered because I’m trying to juggle too many things at once (including actual juggling; I recently set a new continuous run record of over 1300 balls without a drop). Rather than work on the next chapter of my Lincoln book I can’t seem to stop adding to and editing an already-way-too-long current chapter. Getting into a writing routine is hard when my days are split among so many different interests and obligations. To make matters worse, WordPress has suddenly stopped their “Daily Prompt” page, which was so often a stimulus to what I wrote here on Hot White Snow. Now I’m wondering if I should find an alternative daily prompt or if I should redirect my energies and the focus of this page in another direction. Some of the pieces here have been “memoir,” relating stories from my life. I’ve posted about my travels, my family, my “50 Objects,” and my research. I have a section called “On Writing” where I offer advice on the writing life. Others are random creative pieces stimulated by the prompt.

Like my life, Hot White Snow has become a little bit of everything. Perhaps both need more focus. But in what direction?

It all started positively enough. I was chatting with the Editor-in-Chief of Civil War Times, the preeminent magazine on the American Civil War. We were at the annual Lincoln Forum and I showed him my recently released book, Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America. He immediately noticed the preponderance of graphics in the book and exclaimed (yes, exclaimed) his desire to have it reviewed for the magazine. With a circulation of over 100,000 subscribers, plus most public libraries, having my book reviewed was a great opportunity.

One of his favorite book reviewers just happened to pass by us at that moment and the editor assigned my book review to him on the spot. This was fortuitous, given that that same person has bought a copy of my book earlier in the conference. We were good to go.

Months passed and after two issues of the magazine had appeared without any sign of the review I queried the editor. Long story short – some miscommunication left each of them expecting to hear from the other and a review had not yet been written. The editor decided to re-assign the review to another Lincoln scholar, whom I had just seen at a recent event.

Finally the next issue arrives (the magazine is published every other month). Before reading anything else or even looking at the table of contents I go straight to the back and look for the review. Nothing. I see four other books reviewed, all full pages with big headlines and photos of their book covers. I don’t see mine. Alas, I think, it must be scheduled for the next issue.

Then I get an email from the reviewer. Did I see his review of my book in the latest CWT, he asks. Well, no, I respond. I didn’t. So I look again. This time I find it. It’s a short review, merely a narrow column long, squeezed onto a page dominated by ads and facing a full page review of another book with its big headline and cover photo. With a small headline and no cover photo, the review of my book is easily overlooked. Heck, I was looking for it and missed it. I suspect everyone else will think, as I did, that the column is merely the extension of the facing page’s book. Since most people will scan the reviews they may not notice that the “extra column” is actually a review of a different book.

Sigh.

So I finally got the book review that I had been waiting for in the most-read Civil War magazine in the world. I’m grateful for that, though it may be missed by many of its readers.

The review itself is wonderful. Jonathan White is a world-class Lincoln scholar with several well-respected and award-winning Lincoln and Civil War books to his name. His review of Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America is hugely positive:

“He succeeds admirably,”

is one of his lines. He says that the book:

“tells the story of our 16th president through a wonderful blending of lively prose and attractive imagery.”

He has other nice things to say, which can be read in the magazine (page 69). My goal was to create a book experience that draws in members of the general public that might not ever pick up a scholarly book on Abraham Lincoln. The graphics (photos, cartoons, drawings, paintings) both grab the attention and enhance the text. Based on feedback, I’ve succeeded in teaching a broader range of people without them feeling like they are back in school being forced to study a textbook. Many of my readers will be stimulated to learn more about Lincoln, and I’ve provided ample book suggestions in the back to give them a head start.

Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America is already into its second printing, with more printings hopefully down the road. Likely it will join my previous books on Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison in being translated into several foreign languages. Prefer German, Dutch, Spanish, Czech? We have you covered.

The CWT placement may not get as big a splash as I was hoping for, but I’m honored to have such enthusiasm by the editors, the reviewers, and the public for my book. I hope CWT readers will find it a refreshing change from the more academic books they read and present it as gifts their family, friends, and neighbors.